"We are excited about the prospect of working closely with TSX Markets to offer new solutions for our Canadian customers," said Peter Dunai, chief executive officer, IRESS Market Technology. "This relationship fits well with our strategy to invest further in Canada by building trading, order management and information solutions that are uniquely tailored to the local environment in terms of features, compliance and performance."

"We welcome the opportunity to work with IRESS to enhance trading on our equity exchanges," said Rik Parkhill, President, TSX Markets. "To the extent that a multi-market environment adds significant challenges to our clients in regards to compliance as well as to quality of execution by increasing latency, TSX Markets and IRESS are coming together to address those challenges in a way we feel is unique."

As part of the agreement announced today, IRESS's trading and market data systems and its best market order router will be co-located within TSX Markets' primary data centre. This is an exclusive hosting arrangement for integrated desktop best market router applications at TSX Markets. It is expected that this will offer IRESS's customers reduced latency and consistently optimal connectivity to Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange. IRESS will also provide access to all other Canadian exchanges and ATSs and assist market participants in meeting the "best execution" standard as prescribed by the Canadian securities regulatory authorities. The combination of a low latency market access solution with an integrated high performance best market order router provides IRESS workstations and FIX Direct Market Access customers with a premier execution platform. The parties expect to complete the co-location of IRESS's trading and market data systems and its best market order router in the first quarter of 2007.

"The recent release of our new trading workstation coupled with this new relationship with TSX Markets will give our customers the fast, reliable and flexible solutions they have been asking for," said Jim Davies, president, IRESS (LP) Holdings, the general partner of IRESS Market Technology Canada LP.

IRESS and TSX are also looking at ways to explore other opportunities in areas of market data and compliance that benefit the needs of the Canadian trading community and others who access the Canadian marketplace from overseas.